Assessment Tools

Try This Series and How to Try This

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Try This and How To Try This Resources

• Try This Issue 1 - SPICES: An Overall Assessment Tool of Older Adults (Updated)
• • How To Try This (Article) - Fulmer SPICES
  • How To Try This (Video) - SPICES: An Overall Assessment Tool
• Try This Issue 2 - Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living (ADL) (Updated)
• • How To Try This (Article) - Monitoring Functional Status in Hospitalized Older Adults
  • How To Try This (Video) - Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living
• Try This Issue 3 - Mental Status Assessment of Older Adults: The Mini-Cog (New)
• • How To Try This (Article) - The Mini-Cog
  • How To Try This (Video) - The Mini-Cog
• Try This Issue 4 - The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) (Updated)
• (SPANISH) Try This Issue 4- The Geriatric Depression Scale- (New)
• • How To Try This (Article) - The Geriatric Depression Scale: Short Form
  • How To Try This (Video) GDS Short Form Assessment
• Try This Issue 5 - Predicting Pressure Ulcer Risk (Updated)
• • How To Try This (Article) - Predicting Pressure Ulcer Risk
  • How To Try This (Video) - The Braden Scale
• Try This Issue 6.1 - The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) - (Updated)
• • How To Try This (Article) - Evaluating Sleep Quality in Older Adults
  • How To Try This (Video) - Evaluating Sleep Quality in Older Adults
• Try This Issue 6.2 - The Epworth Sleepiness Scale (New)
• Try This Issue 7 - Assessing Pain In Older Adults (Updated)
• Try This Issue 8 - Fall Risk Assessment (Updated)
• • How To Try This (Article) Predicting Patient Falls
  • How To Try This (Video) The Hendrick II Fall Risk Assessment
• Try This Issue 9 - Assessing Nutrition in Older Adults (Updated)
• Try This Issue 10 - Sexuality Assessment for Older Adults (Updated)
• Try This Issue 11.1 - Urinary Incontinence Assessment in Older Adults: Part I - Transient Urinary Incontinence - (Updated)
• Try This Issue 11.2 - Urinary Incontinence Assessment in Older Adults: Part II - Persistent Urinary Incontinence - COMING SOON
• Try This Issue 12 - Hearing Screening in Older Adults-A Brief Hearing Loss Screener (New)
• Try This Issue 13 - Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) (Updated)
• • How To Try This (Article) - Detecting Delirium
  • How To Try This (Video) - Delirium
• Try This Issue 14 - The Modified Caregiver Strain Index (CSI) (Updated)
• Try This Issue 15 - Elder Mistreatment Assessment (Updated)
• (SPANISH) Try This Issue 15- Elder Mistreatment Assessment - (Updated)(New)
• Try This Issue 16 - Beers' Criteria for Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in the Elderly (New)
• • Part I
  • Part II
• Try This Issue 17 - Alcohol Use Screening and Assessment (Updated)
• Try This Issue 18 - The Kayser-Jones Brief Oral Health Status Examination (BOHSE) (New)
• Try This Issue 19 - Horowitz's Impact of Event Scale: An Assessment of Post Traumatic Stress in Older Adults (Updated)
• Try This Issue 20 - Preventing Aspiration in Older Adults with Dysphagia (Updated)
• • (SPANISH) Try This Issue 20 Preventing Aspiration in Older Adults with Dysphagia (New)
• Try This Issue 21 - Immunizations for the Older Adult (Updated)
• Try This Issue 22 - Assessing Family Preferences for Participation in Care in Hospitalized Older Adults (Updated)
• Try This Issue 23 - The Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living(IADL)Scale (New)
• • How To Try This (Article) - The Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale
  • How To Try This (Video) - The Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale
• Try This Issue 24 - The Hospital Admission Risk Profile (HARP) - (New)
• Try This Issue 25 - Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) (New)
  
  Issues on Dementia
• Try This D1: Avoiding Restraints In Patients with Dementia (Updated)
• • How To Try This (Article) - Avoiding Restraints in Patients with Dementia
  • How To Try This (Video) - Avoiding Restraints in Patients with Dementia
• Try This D2: Assessing Pain in Persons with Dementia (Updated)
• Try This D3: Brief Evaluation of Executive Dysfunction: An Essential Refinement in the Assessment of Cognitive Impairment (Updated)
• Try This D4: Therapeutic Activity Kits (Updated)
• Try This D5: Recognition of Dementia in Hospitalized Older Adults (Updated)
• • How To Try This (Article) - Recognition of Dementia in Hospitalized Older Adults
  • How To Try This (Video) - Recognition of Dementia in Hospitalized Older Adults
• Try This D6: Wandering in the Hospitalized Older Adult (Updated)
• Try This D7: Communication Difficulties: Assessment and Interventions (Updated)
• • How To Try This (Article) -Communication Difficulties in Hospitalized Older Adults with Dementia: Try these techniques to make communicating with patients easier and more effective.
  • How To Try This (Video) -Communication Difficulties
• Try This D8: Assessing and Managing Delirium in Persons with Dementia (Updated)
• • How To Try This (Article) - Delirium Superimposed on Dementia
  • How To Try This (Video) - Delerium - The Under-Recongnized Medical Emergency

• Try This D9: Decision Making in Older Adults with Dementia (Updated)
• Try This D10: Working with Families of Hospitalized Older Adults with Dementia (New)
• Try This D11.1: Eating and Feeding Issues in Older Adults with Dementia: Part I: Assessment - (New)
• Try This D11.2: Eating and Feeding Issues in Older Adults with Dementia: Part II: Interventions - (New)

Try This, Best Practices in Care for Older Adults series

The goal of the Try This: Best Practices in Nursing Care to Older Adults series of assessment tools is to provide knowledge of best practices in the care of older adults that is:

• easily accessible
• easily understood
• easily implemented, and
• to encourage the use of these best practices by all direct care nurses

The content is directed to orient and encourage all nurses to understand the special needs of older adults and utilize the highest standards of practice in caring for the elderly.

Each Try This issue is a 2-page document with a description of why the topic is important when caring for older patients on the first page, and an assessment tool that can be administered in 20 minutes or less on the second page. The series is accessible here online and also as hard copy. Try This instruments are designed to be used as screening tools, not for diagnosis.


How To Try This Series

The How to Try This series, a John A. Hartford Foundation-funded project provided to the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing at New York University's College of Nursing in collaboration with the American Journal of Nursing, translates the evidence-based geriatric assessment tools in the Try This assessment series into cost-free, web-based resources including demonstration videos, and a corresponding print series featured in the AJN, developed to build geriatric assessment skills - the foundation for appropriate care of older adults.

Videos can be watched in their entire format, or in chapters that relate to the specific assessment skills described above.

Permissions: Please download and print these issues for your use. Permission is granted for photocopying and disseminating for educational, non-profit use only. Try This can only be reproduced in its entirety. If you plan to include any Try This issues in a publication please contact us for permission. In addition, if you wish to use only an assessment tool, you must contact that publisher directly for permission.

If you have any questions or comments, or would like to be notified when new issues of Try This are posted, please email us at contact@consultgerirn.org. Please send all requests for Try This in the body of your e-mail. We do not open attachments as they can hold a virus.

How To Try This Articles may be printed and copied for educational use without copyright fees. If you have questions about the How To Try This project, please contact Katherine Kany/Project Director. She can be reached at: katherinekany@comcast.net , or at 703-729-6050.